Gemini Force 1 is on the launch pad, ready to join the likes of Supercar, Fireball XL5, Stingray, Joe 90, UFO, Captain Scarlet and Space: 1999 in the lexicon of popular small screen sci-fi.

And, of course, Thunderbirds, many of the puppets for which were made by John Blundall at the Midland Arts Centre in Birmingham.

Jamie Anderson, the youngest of four children by Gerry’s three marriages, last week launched a crowd-funding appeal to try to turn his father’s last adventure into a viable book project.

And if it proves successful then, who knows, TV could well come knocking again.

Based on ideas Gerry was developing at the same time as he was battling Alzheimer’s, the heroes of GF1 will be compassionate and courageous, using technology to make the world a better place.

Thunderbirds fans will most certainly approve.

Fans can invest right from the beginning, with the payback of having future characters named after themselves, or their children.

Best-selling author MG Harris (of The Joshua Files fame) has been commissioned to complete the first book in the way that Jamie, 28, hopes his father would have wanted.

“Dad first had the idea for Gemini Force 1 in 2008,” recalls Jamie, who lives in Oxford. “But he wanted to protect me, to keep me safe, so he would never let me work with him officially.

“He’d say: ‘I don’t want any son of mine working in this industry because it’s horrible, full of unpleasant people and stressful – it’s not something I want you to work in’. He’d say ‘If you join this industry I will block you at every turn’.

“Dad felt that people should make their own path.

Jamie Anderson with his dad Gerry (Image: Andrew Crowley)

“So I gave up the dream – until he started asking for my input again.

“Ironically, he had just started to ask me ‘What do you think?’ about various ideas when he died. He had just started to collaborate on some new ideas when the germs of Gemini Force 1 started to form.

“Since January, I’d been looking for the right author to develop his ideas.”

If all goes to plan, the first editions will be published in April next year, with a public launch in August, designed to coincide with the 50th anniversary of Thunderbirds going into production in August 1964.

”The exciting news for fans is that Gemini Force 1 is not the only ‘lost’ Anderson show.

“There’s so much stuff,” says Jamie. “I keep finding new things ranging from commercials to pilot episodes of shows. In Dad’s files are things I’ve never heard of, including a full script from 1975 called Five Star Five.

“It would have been like Star Wars before Star Wars. I have six scripts and two synopses of other unmade shows.”

“Dad worked in incredible detail and shot most of his shows on 35mm, so that it can still be scanned to high definition,” he explains.

“This means that 50-year-old television shows, made for a few lines on a TV screen, can still be projected in cinemas – and converted into 3D.

“But ITV own the old programmes, and they are sitting on them. Dad’s problem was that he didn’t own the rights to it all. I still get letters from people aged five to 15+ saying how much they like Stingray.

“That was made in 1963 and if you played that to children today along with the first episode of Doctor Who – and I’m a Doctor Who fan – Stingray is the one they would like the most, and not just because it’s in colour.

“It’s more dramatic, exciting and has aged so well.

“That’s the physical proof of how good it was and still is.”

Gerry’s first marriage to Betty Wrightman produced two daughters, while second wife Sylvia – with whom he had a bitter falling out – gave birth to his first son. Jamie’s mum Mary worked behind the scenes on Space: 1999, Terrahawks and Space Precinct.

Together they helped care for Gerry as he tragically descended into dementia.

“Because of the Alzheimer’s, dad had ‘gone’ six months before he died,” reveals Jamie.

“He didn’t know who I was. “He’d ask ‘Who are you?’ and would ridicule the notion I could be his son. I ended up as the ‘big brother’ so in a way I was grieving before he died. At his insistence, we’d taken him on a family holiday to Bordeaux. He was a bit confused then, even though he’d enjoyed it.

“We were looking after him at home but by the end of August he didn’t feel safe and needed somewhere to be looked after.”

Gerry’s will stipulated that his brain be given to medical science so that the condition which cruelly stole his creativity could be researched.

“I’m his youngest child by some way and the last in line,” says Jamie. “I want to keep this going because the rest are doing other things.

“If I can manage just ten per cent of my father’s creativity and have the feel for a good product, I’m sure that will be enough. Even today, people are still emailing Gerry because his work means such a lot to them.”